People are writing about economic freedom a lot these days. George Will’s recent Washington Post column Testing the Waters of Economic Libertyfocusses on a big deviation from economic freedom in the State of Washington with implications for America. Jeb Bush’s recent Wall Street Journal article Capitalism and the Right to Risesummarizes the great benefits of economic freedom to improve people’s lives. My new book, First Principles, out in January, shows that America has deviated from the principles of economic freedom in recent years, and proposes ways to get back to them.

Of course the concept of economc freedom has been a pillar of basic economics courses for years. When I lecture about economic freedom to Stanford students I like to build on the Stanford motto which translates from the German words on the Stanford seal as “Let the Winds of Freedom Blow”